DVD Cover Research

Before creating our own DVD cover, we firstly began to research existing DVD covers of a similar genre. These are the main DVD covers that we researched:

50 First Dates
500 Days of Summer
The Break Up
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Me, Myself and Irene

When looking at these DVD covers we noticed all of the conventions that were required to make a DVD cover. The conventions that we felt that we needed to include on our DVD cover were synopsis, pictures, production company website, credits, running time, language, main feature subtitles, company logo, classification, barcode, reviews from magazines, layout, main cast, titles, strap line and a big picture as the background image.

Most of the DVD Covers that we looked at had the same layout, for example the main characters name along the top, a big picture as the background, a three colour scheme and the classification on the front, side and back.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing is a form of internet advertisement that is said to be word of mouth, it is any form of internet marketing specificaly social networks that is sent or put on one website and then the message spreads by word of mouth. This is a growing form of promotion as the amount of Internet users is rapidly growing. As well as this there are now many social networking websites around for example Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube and MSN. As well as companies and products being advertised on these sites films are hyped up and advertised on them. Many films create pages for their characters or make websites for there films and upload their trailers and T.V spots to YouTube.

A good example of how a film has used viral marketing is Cloverfield who first distributed a teaser trailer with no film name, just a website. When you logged onto this website which was the date of the film release (http://www.1-18-08.com/) it just had a pile of pictures with dates on them that you could move around to look at better (An image of this is below). Some of these pictures were clear pictures of friends and a party whilst others were very mysterious with effects on top of them making it very unclear of what they are of. This created even more of a hype and got people excited and talking about it on social networking website.

Cloverfield also used Facebook and MySpace to create pages for the characters of the film. This created even more hype for the film; there were links to these pages on the website. This made the film very up to date and accessible.

The representation on different people/groups

In our film we have represented two main areas. One being an upper class area and the other being a working class area. This has been represented highly through mise-en-scene. The shots, which are in the upper class area, are mainly of famous landmarks and expensive shops ect. The use of costumes makes it clear that one character is wealthier and from a richer background, whilst the other characters costume shows that he is from a poorer area.

Characters

There are many ways in which theorists have explained characters structure the first one being created by a Russian theorist Tzvetan Todorov
Vladimir Propp came up with the theory that there are only a certain amount of characters that can come up:

• One of the character types that is used in our film is the hero this is the character that has the lead narrative and is trying to solve something, on a journey or on a quest, in our film this describes the main female character as she is on a journey to figure out her life after her mum dies. As our hero is a female this challenges the usual conventions as a film typically has a male lead role.
• The dispatcher is a character that sends the hero off, although the mother isn’t shown in the trailer much she is the dispatcher of the film, as she dies leaving the girl alone and having to go on her journey.

Posh Girl
In our film the main character is a female that is of upper class, she is very naïve and in her own upper class world, she is not very aware of the bad things in life until her mum dies. Her personality however she is then forced to change when she is moved to live in an average town, she then starts to realise what life is about.

Being the ‘Hero’ in the film she follows Tzvetan Todorov theory as the start of the trailer shows Equilibrium where everything is good and happy, there is then a disruption in her life, when her mum dies, this is the Disequilibrium a resolution then starts to occur towards the end of the teaser trailer however there is then another disequilibrium and you will need to watch the film to find out how it is resolved.

Upper Class Boy (William)
In our film William; the upper class boy, is very pompous and has a sense of self-importance. Compared to the lower class boy he is dull and plain. He believes that he is in love with the posh girl and thinks that she loves him back just as much, however will the bubbly personality of the lower class boy change things?

Lower Class Boy
In our film the lower class boy is very easy to relate to, as he is just an average person. He is very easy going, carefree, relaxed and fun to be around, this is the opposite of William.

Time Log

Monday 30th November 2009:

Location: Basildon Town centre
Shots filmed: Establishing wide shots of Basildon Town

Wednesday 2nd December 2009:

Location: Joyces house, Basildon
Shots Filmed: Fast shots with the girls mum

Thursday 10th December 2009:

Location: London (Embankment and Canary Wharf)
Shots Filmed: Hotel shots and establishing wide shots of London and posh areas


Saturday 16th January 2010:

Location: Joyces house and Basildon
Shots Filmed: Shots with the posh boy and the new boy and the rest of the shots

Casting

We have three main characters in our film, below is who is playing each character:

• Joyce Ncube - The posh girl


• Jack Gruchy - Lower class boy


• Kyle Chapman - Upper class boy (William)

Other characters that our in our film are:

• Cheraine Ncube - The mum


• Daniel David - Hotel receptionist